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Monday, January 9, 2017

Books for Writers - The Grammar Bible

Welcome to one of my new features for 2017! I will be highlighting 10 great books for writers. Each one will be different. And I highly recommend them all.

The Grammar Bible by Michael Strumpf is the best grammar
book I have found, and I have read many. The Grammar Bible is simple and easy
to understand with great examples. It will especially help you with the
ever-complex comma. If you hate text books, no need to worry because The
Grammar Bible doesn’t resemble one, but you will find more grammar advice and
examples than in any other grammar book. That’s why this is called the “Bible.”
On the cover, it says: “Everything you always wanted to know but didn’t know
whom to ask.” And that’s an accurate statement.

Each chapter is divided into sections to help you learn.
Part One consists of parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

Part Two is all about dissecting sentences. Part Three is for
spelling, vocabulary, and punctuation. The punctuation covers periods, commas,
colons, semicolons, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points,
parentheses, brackets, hyphens, dashes, and quotation marks.

Michael Stumpf also answers questions that he’s received from
“anxious writers, conscientious students, and perplexed editors.” No question
is stupid or silly. He answers them all with respect.

Some things you can find/learn:

- Place a comma between adjectives that describe the same
now. Ex: a damp, gray day.

- Use a comma for two simple sentences that are joined.
Meaning they have a noun and a verb. Ex: Sam loves to cook, but he loves to
eat more.

You’ll also learn the differences between words such as
bare/bear, sight/site, anyway/any way, affect/effect, all ready/already,
awhile/ a while, born/borne, continual/continuous, whoever/whomever.

I have a dozen books on grammar and style, tools and essentials, but I don't have this one. Thanks for the tip!The book I grab first depends on what I'm working on, but this Bible sounds like one-stop assistance. I love your new page look :-)

I have CMS in hardcover as well as on my ipad...which makes searching easier. I also have Eat, Shoots and Leaves. Young Writer's Guide by R MartinThe Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need by ThurmanGrammar Girls Quick and Easy Tips by Mignan Fogarty

I was lucky in that I was taught 'proper' grammar at school and have been teaching it for years, but still, different publication houses have their own style guides which may contradict some of these 'rules'. But it is true, many writers struggle with where to put a comma, and they're not alone. I read recently that JD Salinger of Catcher in the Rye fame, once spent a whole day writing. What he'd achieved that day, was the correct placement of a comma!! He thought that was productive. How times have changed...

The other women in the small critique group within my local writers' group love how detailed and nit-picky I am with my comments about grammar and formatting. I'll recommend this book to them, since they really appreciate the attention to grammar. I like to attribute my sharp eye for this to the fact that I'm over half German, and thus pre-disposed to an exact attention to detail.

This sounds like the perfect reference book, Chrys. Thanks for sharing it! Whom and who or whomever and whoever---always get me. I tend to google these questions but it would be better to have the physical book in hand at my desk. Thanks for the recommendation!